SEMICONDUCTORS
MediaTek sales up 9.57%
Handset chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said revenue reached a high of NT$19.1 billion (US$635.7 million) last month, up 9.57 percent from March, on replacement demand for smartphones in China and emerging markets. That was up 52 percent from a year earlier, boosted by the acquisition of MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體).
INVESTMENT
FSC approves UBS plan
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has approved applications by UBS Taiwan’s offshore banking unit to make foreign currency investments on behalf of foreign customers. The deregulation will help facilitate capital repatriation as other banks may follow suit, the commission said yesterday. The relaxation spares customers the need to enter trust deals for the services, it said.
BANKING
Mobile payments to be tried
Retail vendors in Taiwan will soon accept credit card payments by using a card reader attached to a tablet computer or smartphone, National Credit Card Center senior executive vice president Margaret Yin (殷介芳) said on Wednesday. “We will start with a pilot scheme and may expand the scale if it is widely accepted by the public,” Yin said. The project will go on six-month trial at Watami Japanese Casual Restaurant Taiwan (和民居食屋), DA.AI Technology Co (大愛感恩科技) and Fubon Insurance Co (富邦產物保險).
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS